My goals are to write, be widely published and take it on the road

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Rosalie Ranch / the cabin

I head for my land, from town. It is late in the day, especiallly a short winter day – 2:00. It takes 45 minutes to drive to the cabin. It will be dark at 4:30. I breath a deep sigh just over Evaro hill, but find this day the fog I’ve been hearing about on the weather reports. The sun was so glorious in town today that it caused me to stop and stand with my face taking it in, warming my closed eyelids.
I thought back to yesterday morning when I got up to the 6:20 alarm so I could witness the full eclipse of the moon. For that I had my eyes wide open. It is said eclipses are for facing our shadow side, releasing old things we drag around with us, so to allow the new to enter. I have been releasing plenty, of late, but astrologer genius/mystery school friend Ron Maehl said this eclipse falls in a house (gemini) where it was in early December 1992. He suggests to look back on that time in your life and see what baggage or old ways of being need be ejected or re-thought. He says the effects of an eclipse can linger 3 months…I will ponder what I carry.

For today, my weekly escape to the cabin. Just me and the dog for an over-nighter, maybe two.The cabin is north of town on a main hiway.The last 3 miles are dirt road. I like the location because: it is on a poor indian reservation (which one isn’t poor?). There is, to the east, a national game preserve – both of which mean this area wont be developed any time in the near future. And it doesnt hurt that the economy has gone belly up. Most of the properties around me have been up for sale since I bought this place in ’05. Upwards of $600K – 2 million they wont be selling anytime soon. Fine by me. Solitude it is. Just what I seek, the reason I come.

Since I’ve been coming I find I can no longer abide the noise of the town. The trains, the traffic, the incessantly barking dogs (doesnt their barking drive their owners as insane?), just the drone of a city, and the constant buildings and movement…I crave the solace of here. Sometimes I sit up on the back fence post and gaze the 360 degree view. It is quiet, and still, but for the tall grass blowing in the breeze. Aside from a scattered few farmhouses, there is no jumble of buildings, just land; hills, a small creek, and bigger ones I can see by the big trees that grow in the drainages, and the grand Mission mountains. I sit looking at them in all seasons, makin sure they aint makin any fast moves but they are constant in their stillness.
The cabin sits low in a drainage – out of sight from neighbors and any road. It is a good 3/4 mile off the dirt road. Today when I arrive I see about a dozen bald eagles roosting in the cottonwood trees on Mission creek. Not just blessed by the sight of one but twelve – WOW! They often winter in this valley, I have seen it before. The sound they make is like a trickling waterfall, and it carries easy on the breeze that blows in from the west.

Because of the fog this and the entire Jocko valley are swaddled in a blanket of hoar frost. It is the most magic and beautiful thing. Inch long jagged spikes of frost cling to every twig, blade of grass, even the protective cages on my trees. The barbwire gate at my entrance – it seemed a shame to destroy such beauty by moving the gate to get thru. The slightest movement and the crystals fall like dust…

Jed, the dog and I walk the house quarter (I organised my back 6 acres, where I spend my time, into quadrants so to be clear in my desires for development; the lavender quarter with its ‘Sunset Bench’, the Cabin quarter where the outdoor bath tub is and the tool shed which sits on the border of the Faerie Sancuary – a place where only the wild things go, the House quarter, where the dream house is slowly manifesting – the well is there along with a guest cabin, and the orchard which unfortunately was gobbled up by the voles winter of 2012, but the 1960 VW transporter is parked there and could become another guest bedroom. We walk the quad loops each visit to see that the deer (overgrown rodentia) have not damaged any tree cages, and find this day, the frost is coated more thickly on only one side of the trees. It looks blown as tho from a north wind. The frost does strange things, illusionary things; It makes the flimsy bird netting I’ve draped over the the tops of some cages look stiff and crisp, yet makes the hardware metal capping other cages look soft like draped, tatted lace tablecloths.